


growing up is optional (drabble)

by waywardrogue



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, a little one shot, more or less right at the beginning, pre-journey really, short short short, that's just kinda cute, when they're all together and getting ready to go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:50:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardrogue/pseuds/waywardrogue
Summary: Erebor was just a story.





	growing up is optional (drabble)

**Author's Note:**

> this is absolutely [Rae's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilliputianDuckling) fault.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erebor was a _story_.

 

The older dwarves would speak of it with melancholy want, “the days of old”, “before _Smaug_ ” -- but it was only a story to two young dwarrows, bright eyed and curious of the world.

 

“He’d be the prince someday,” whispers were as Fili passed. Kili dashed after his elder brother, grabbing his sleeve and asking, “prince of what?”

 

“A lost kingdom. Erebor, I guess.” Five years Kili’s senior, hair kissed by the sun, eyes blue as the ocean’s depths. _Kili envied those eyes as a child_ \- _he’d wished his own were such a shade and only as he got older did he find joy in his own_.

 

“The place the grown ups talk about all the time?”

 

“Yes. They want to go home.”

 

“...But that’s not our home.”

 

Fili only shrugged his shoulders, smiling down at his younger brother. “No. It’s not.”

 

Erebor was _just_ a story.

 

A story of grandeur, Kili supposed, a story to show how _strong_ their people were- beaten and broken but not _dead_ \- not out for the count. How they could and would recover, renew, and maybe some day _go home_ . But that was such a funny phrase, Kili thought with brows furrowed. _Go home_ as if where they were wasn’t home already. Things like that- while he understood there was a weight behind it for the elders- were honestly lost on him emotionally. No real connection past _this was our home, our tradition_. Sure.

 

So was brushing hair, and noble practices, but  Kili had little interest in those either. Even as he watched his brother- _crown prince, they said, the heir_ \- being taught about this and that, politics that did him no good currently, noble practices that _poor_ dwarrows like them didn’t currently need-

 

Well, their mother insisted. “Someday,” she’d said in that sort of way she did when he was annoyed at her boys’ constant questioning, “We will go back to Erebor, and Fili will need to know these things- as should _you_ , Kili, but Fili would bear the crown.” It all seemed so- uncertain.

 

Still, Erebor remained a story.

 

One day, one day, one day-- that was what the words were. And the youthful part of him clung to the image conjured of grand halls and a bustling dwarven city- but it was only an image, like a painting in his mind, not a memory. There was no fond recollection some of the elders held, just a cluster of thoughts and imaginings of what it _may_ have been.

 

Erebor remained a story, even when Thorin said he would go on his quest.

 

It remained a story when Fili and Kili said they would join him, and Dis had said _no_ but they promised to come home, they _promised_ and swore and hugged her and she told Thorin, “you better bring them back to me, and you better come back too.” And Thorin smiled in that tired way that made his eyes crinkle at the corners, made him look younger and he promised his sister they’d come home.

 

But still, Erebor was a story. A story they believed in, a place they didn’t know they’d see. Many of their other companions were so eager to see it reclaimed- must have been, Kili figured, if they’d agreed to this quest. To them, it wasn’t a story-

  
And maybe one day soon, it would no longer be _just_ a story.


End file.
